


AGRA’s last mission

by Alythe



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Mary's background, Missing Scenes, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alythe/pseuds/Alythe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because....yes, an assassin working as a nurse with John shortly after Sherlock's death...what a coincidence. Come on, the universe is not that lazy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	AGRA’s last mission

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to tearmyheartopentofeel for editing this

She had a new name, now. Several ones, in fact. AGRA was just a distant memory by now. After the...misunderstanding of the last mission, she had had no other choice than to leave the CIA for good. Which meant going into hiding, getting a new identity. If you had seen enough, if you paid attention, you knew who was the best one for that. Just a whisper in the darkness, always pronounced in fear and awe. Moriarty. A man, or an organisation. She didn’t care, as long as he could give her a new life.

 

The problem was, she had no other skills. A lifetime ago, she had became an expert in her field. Anything else, she’d have to learn. And she didn’t want to, she loved her job and she wass good at it.

 

She went into hiding, and finally managed to get a card. Just a phone number, and the letter M, but she knew it meant her freedom. She got in touch.

 

Three weeks later she met a small and unassuming man in a crowded restaurant in Paris. He didn’t say his name, and she didn’t ask. Because she knew how to observe, and there wass something more about this man. Besides, it wass her who was asking for a favour.

 

“It would be a shame, letting those skills rot”, the man said in a strangely calm tone.

 

She looks him in the eyes, and the look in them ins empty, cold and calculating. Not Moriarty himself, surely. Nobody sane would risk this. But somebody important.

 

“I can’t go back”. She knew too much, and they didn’t trust her.

 

“Oh, dear. Have I suggested that? You want a new identity. That’s easy for you to achieve. But no. You....looked for _me_. You don’t want to hide, you want a job.”

 

She froze, and her eyes searched the room again. She hadn’t noticed anybody suspicious before, and, of course, she was armed, but....yes. There, in the corner. Two men. A waiter, too. And....that woman in the back. How hadn’t she noticed them before? She was trained for this!

 

“My people are the best”, the man said with a cold smile. “So....do you want that job?”

 

She hesitated. If this man was who he claimed to be, killing him might get her back. But she also knew she wouldn’t make it alive if she did it. Hiding hadn’t worked for her, she needed the work, the adrenaline, the excitement. And yet....

 

“Come on, dear. Just name your price”, Moriarty said. His smile turned playful, and she couldn’t help to smile back. What was she doing?

 

“What are your terms?”, she asked, knowing that, one day, curiosity would be her death.

 

Moriarty laughed. “Terms? Oh, let see. I know about you, dear. So I won’t push your limits. No kids, I know you don’t do that. Let’s say... I offer you a mission...the rough details, not the names....and you can accept or reject it. If you reject it....nothing happens. If you accept....well, you should have heard by now. When you work for me, missing means dying”

 

“I don’t miss”, she replied coldly. Getting to choose missions, and no children, Yes, she could work like this.

 

Moriarty grinned, and offered a hand. She shook it whithout hesitation.

 

“Welcome to my family”, he said, grinning.

 

That’s how she became a gun for hire.

 

 

****

 

It worked perfectly.  Moriarty’s people took care of everything. She was given a past, a cover identity. Several ones. Weapons. Safe houses. And the pay was better than she could have ever dreamed. There were no predictable schedule, and she never saw Moriarty again. She had been given a phone, and an email account. She received the information of the mission in her phone. No names, no precise locations, but enough to asses it and know what it would entail. After that, she had twelve hours to decide if she took it or not. If she did, she got all the details and materials needed. And everything was perfectly planned. There were backup plans, and backup of the backup plans. There were always at least three scape routes. The work was easy, and she loved it.

 

 

****

 

She didn’t believe the news when she read it in the papers. Moriarty, made up by Holmes? The mere idea was ridiculous. She knew it had to be another operation, but she was in the middle of a mission in Barcelona by then, so it didn’t bother her. Moriarty would fix it. He always did.

 

Her next mission was different. Not just a hit, but infiltration, gathering information and act according to it. Nothing she couldn’t do, but she hadn’t done it for Moriarty before. She read the outline of the mission carefully. Pose as a nurse, and get close to a man to find out if another man was dead or alive. If he was alive, kill the first man. It sounded ridiculously easy. She accepted.

 

Six months later, Mary Elisabeth Morstan was hired as a nurse in the same clinic where John Watson worked.

 

After a few weeks, she had absolutely no doubt that if Sherlock Holmes was alive, John Watson had no idea. The man was clearly grieving, bordering a depression. She passed the information, and got the money.

 

After that, she should have left. But she had come to appreciate the chats with John after work, the way she some times could put a tiny smile on his lips. She didn’t hear anything from Moriarty, she told herself. She was just waiting for the next mission.

 

One day, he asked her out. Well, sort of. They started meeting after work, and she asked him if they were dating. Because, honestly, this man was appalling at talking about emotions.

 

A few months later, they had moved in together, and she still had no word from Moriarty. Part of her began to believe that he was actually dead.

 

Things with John were good. She thought she could get used to this life, after all. John smiled more, his nightmares weren’t so frequent. He even took her to Sherlock’s grave. And....slowly, she had fallen in love with this honest man who made her smile and forget about her mission without noticing how it had happened.

 

 

****

 

Mary had seen the ring in John’s drawer, but hadn’t said anything. John was traditional, and wanted to make things this way, so she decided to allow it. It would make him happy. So she acted surprised when he invited her to a fancy restaurant without any apparent reason.

 

****

 

She recognised Sherlock Holmes before John did. How couldn’t she? He was the reason she was here, she had read his file a million times. And yet...she couldn’t process it. Because Sherlock being alive meant she had to kill John. She had accepted the mission. She had taken the money. And missing meant death.

 

“No. You’re dead”, she muttered, not really listening to what they were saying.

 

And that man, who had no idea of what he was doing to John...that didn’t seem to have any idea of what he had done to him, replied that he knew because he had checked. That made her loose it.

 

“Do you have any idea of what you’ve done to him?”

 

They keep talking, but she stops paying attention when she hears Moriarty’s name. He’s dead, he has to be.

 

She should either kill John, or Sherlock...or flee. But both John and Sherlock believe that Moriarty is really dead. And, for the first time since she knows John, there’s life in his eyes. He’s happy. So, despite knowing Sherlock Holmes is a target, and knowing what he can do. Despite knowing that it would put her in the Iceman’s radar, just because it would make John happy, she found herself smiling to Sherlock and saying that she’ll talk to John.

 

****

 

It worked, of course. Both men had missed each other too much to need more than a little encouragement from her.  For six months, she allowed herself to be happy. John went with Sherlock to cases, blogged about it, kept irregular times in the clinic, and came to her bed every night. And he was happier than she’d ever seen him.

 

Sherlock noticed something, of course. He was Sherlock Holmes. But he never mentioned anything, and nor did she. It worked...until the telegrams in her wedding.

 

“Oodles of love and heaps of good wishes from Cam. Wish your family could have seen this.”

 

She froze, terrified, and tried to hide it. His family. Moriarty had used that word, and she had no other living relatives. And...Cam. That name sounded familiar. The Archive, Moriarty’s people called him. So Sherlock had failed. Some of the organization was still out there. She was in danger.

 

The wedding passed without anything else happening. So did the honeymoon. But she knew a warning when she saw one, and she knew she had to do something. And she had a child to protect now too. She had a life, a good one, and she was going to fight for it.

 

She tracked Cam. It wasn’t as difficult as she had thought. Charles Augustus Magnussen. The Archive. Only....the timing was awful. The night she managed to get inside the building, and have him kneeling in front of her gun, almost telling her where he kept the files, she heard Sherlock Holmes behind her.

 

“Is John here?”, she asked. If John wasn’t here, she had a way out of this. Kill Magnussen and ask Sherlock for help to find the documents? No. Sherlock would tell John. But if John wasn’t here, she could leave.

 

“He's downstairs.”

 

No. That meant John would be a suspect if something happened here.

 

Magnussen looked at her smugly. “So, what do you do now? Kill us both?”

 

No, that wouldn’t solve the problem. She had to find out how much Magnussen knew, how much of Moriarty’s organisation was still there, and what proof did Magnussen have.

 

“Mary, whatever he's got on you, let me help.”

 

Sherlock. If she killed Sherlock, her job was done too, wasn’t it? And John would be safe.

 

“Oh, Sherlock, if you take one more step, I swear I will kill you.”

 

“No, Mrs Watson...you won't.”

 

Mrs Watson. She didn’t let it show in her face or body, but she remembered how Sherlock’s death had affected John. It would kill him this time. But Magnussen was watching. She had a target in front of her gun, and missing meant death. Don’t miss, then. Give him a chance. Enough so he could survive, but also enough to make Magnussen believe she had done her job. It was her only way out.

 

“I'm sorry, Sherlock. I truly am.”, she said as she pulled the trigger.

 

 

She called an ambulance before leaving, knowing that Sherlock had just a small chance to survive. It was the most she could risk.

 

****

 

 

She arrived home before John did. No messages, no calls. Maybe she should run. But she didn’t. Two hours later she received a frantic call from John. He was in a hospital, Sherlock had been shot and was in surgery.

 

She hand’t really thought what to do if Sherlock made it. But....it was too late for that. When she arrived to the hospital, John looked calmer. So Sherlock had survived. She didn’t know how to feel about that. She hugged John tightly, trying to decide what to do.

 

“You...Mrs Watson, you're in big trouble.”

 

“Really? Why?”, she replied, trying to kept her emotions hidden, and ready to flight.

 

“His first word when he woke up...Mary."

 

She smiled awkwardly, knowing what that meant. But obviously John didn’t. She was allowed in Sherlock’s room alone. One visitor at a time. Good. She had to think of something. But the idea of John knowing terrified her. If John knew, he’d believe she didn’t love him. If he knew she had approached him for a mission....no.

 

“You don't tell him. Sherlock? You don't tell John.”

 

She couldn’t say anything else. What could she say? Either Sherlock told him, or not. It was out of her hands now, and she still had to make sure that John was safe. But Sherlock chose that precise moment to disappear with a bullet hole in his chest, and she had to find him. They all looked, but she knew he wouldn’t be in any of his usual bolt holes.

 

She looked anyway, because she had to be sure. On his way to Leinster Gardens a homeless asked her for money. When she stopped, she handed him a phone. “Rule one of looking for Sherlock Holmes, he finds you.”

 

So Sherlock was looking for her. Of course. She picked up the phone, and Sherlock lead her to an empty house, projecting a picture of her in her wedding dress on the building. Not precisely subtle.

 

“What do you want, Sherlock?”, she asked, entering the building. Just a corridor, in fact. There was a shadow figure at the end of it, but she ignored it. It was surely a dummy.

 

'Mary Morstan was stillborn in October 1972. 'Her gravestone is in Chiswick cemetery, where ago you acquired her name and date of birth, and thereafter her identity.”

 

Sherlock knew. Of course he did. She wondered for how long.

 

 

“You can recognise a skip code on sight, have extraordinarily retentive memory.....How good a shot are you?'

 

She smiled. She had nothing to lose now. She took out her gun. “How badly do you want to find out?”

 

“If I die here, my body would be found in a building with your face projected on the front of it. 'Even Scotland Yard could get somewhere with that.'I want to know how good you are. Go on, show me. The doctor's wife must be a little bit bored by now.”

 

“It's a dummy”, she replied, looking at the still figure in the shadows.

 

“Well, I suppose that was a fairly obvious trick.”

 

It was. But if Sherlock wanted to know, she’d show him. She tossed a coin, and shot it right in the centre. She wasn’t ashamed of who she was.

 

“And yet, over a distance of six feet, you failed to make a kill shot.Enough to hospitalise me, not enough to kill me. That wasn't a miss, that was surgery."

 

Maybe Sherlock understood, after all. Maybe he wouldn’t tell John. Now she had to find out what he wanted.

 

“Why didn't you come to me in the first place?”

 

She almost laughed. Because he was supposed to be dead, in the first place. Because he was a target. And....”Because John can't ever know that I lied to  him.It would break him and I would lose him forever. And Sherlock, I will never let that happen.”

 

“Sorry. Not that obvious a trick.”

 

The dummy moved, and it wasn’t a dummy, it was _John_. John, looking at her as if he didn’t know her, as if he hated her. She stared at him, not knowing what to say. She didn’t say anything in the cab to Baker street, and, once in the flat, she still had no idea of where to start from. She saw them fighting feeling strangely numb. She saw John falling apart in front of him, not daring to look at her, and it broke her heart. And then Sherlock looked at her in that calm and unreadable way.

 

“What is she?”

 

“My lying wife?”

 

“ No, what is she?”

 

“And the woman who is carrying my child, who has lied to me since the day I met her.”

 

“No. Not in this flat, not in this room. Right here, right now, what is she?”

 

“OK. Your way. Always your way”

 

Mary just listened, hearing the pain in John’s voice and hating that she had put it there. And then, John turned to her.

 

“Sit.”, he said, pointing to  chair.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because that's where they sit. The people who come in here with their stories. They're the clients, that's all you are now, Mary. You're a client. This is where you sit and talk and this is where we sit and listen. Then we decide if we want you or not.”

 

John’s voice was cold and distant, but Mary still could hear the hurt in it. So she sat as John had said, and hoped John could forgive her. Sherlock already know some of it. That she was an intelligence agent, foreign and on the run, hiding. But he didn’t know about Moriarty. She just listened, and then handed John the USB drive where she had stored the data of the mission. She knew he wouldn’t love her anymore when he knew, so she just told him to read it when she had left.

 

The only bright side of the next months were that there were no sign of Moriarty, and that  Magnussen didn’t contact her again. John moved back to Baker street, and, although she saw him at work every day, he didn’t talk to her at all until Christmas. It was torture, but she didn’t press him. He needed time to make a decision.

 

She hadn’t been expecting an invitation to the Holmes’ Christmas party, but apparently John hadn’t told anybody about their fight. And it wasn’t as if she had anybody to tell.

 

And that wonderful, amazing man, just forgave her. Without even reading the files, without any questions. He threw the USB to the fire and hugged her. And, just for a moment, Mary dared to dream that things would be okay. That there was only Magnussen left from Moriarty’s organization, Sherlock would deal with him and she could have a life.

 

When she woke up from his drugged tea (and honestly, how hadn’t she noticed that?), she was home, in her own bed, and John was taking her hand. When he saw she was awake, he kissed her and explained her that Magnussen was dead, Sherlock had killed her and there were no files. That she was safe.

 

And she believed it, right until the moment she saw Moriarty’s face in all the screens of the country.

 

“Did you miss me?”

 

She was as good as dead.


End file.
